Ads may be coming to HTC BlinkFeed
HTC recently reported its worst financial results for April since 2009, so it might not be surprising hear that the company is looking for additional ways to monetize its mobile business. According to regular HTC leaker @Upleaks, HTC may be looking to implement advertising directly into its BlinkFeed home screen to help raise additional revenue. See the leaked slide below.
Apparently, the advertisements could range from typical Play Store downloads, to promoting strategic partnerships and offers for other HTC products. Furthermore, @Upleaks suggests that version 7.1 of HTC’s Sense Home, which was released on May 6th, already has the ad framework built in and that it could be switched on as soon as HTC is ready.
HTC Sense Home Ver.7.1(Released on 6th May) already have AD framework, almost ready for deliver Ads…
— @upleaks (@upleaks) May 11, 2015
Remember, this is still just a rumor for now. Will have no confirmation from HTC on the matter and it’s not entirely clear how the company would go about implementing advertisements, if at all. How regularly advertisements would be displayed, on which devices they would be shown, and whether there’s an opt-in/out or premium option, are all currently unknown.
HTC has already begun rolling out some of its software, such as its Zoe camera app, to non-HTC Android devices and it’s possible that Sense Home could be set to follow suite. Perhaps HTC is planning an ad supported free version of Sense which could be made available to a range of Android handsets. We know that HTC is keen to reach new customers through new hardware and software channels.
While advertising is deemed quite acceptable to subsidise free or low cost services, HTC already charges a premium price for its smartphones, including its new flagship One M9. It doesn’t sound like good business sense to try to milk more money from its limited hardware consumer base and I’d be surprised if HTC was going down this route.
HTC’s long running financial issues are clearly causing trouble for the company, but do you think that BlinkFeed advertising would help?
The Play Store now lets you pre-register for apps
Google is slowly improving the set of tools developers can use to publish and promote their apps in the Play Store. Features like promoted apps in search results help with app discovery, while the rumored A/B testing capability may help developers drastically increase conversion levels.
A new Play Store feature that will improve the experience for users and publishers alike is app pre-registration. You can now register your interest for an upcoming app or game, just as you would register for updates on a new service or a new smartphone.
Apps that use the new feature will have a “Pre-register” button where the Install or the Purchase button can normally be found. Pre-registration doesn’t mean you will have to pay for the app once it comes out; you will simply receive a notification on your device when the app becomes available for download, and it’s up to you if you want to purchase or install it. You can always unregister by visiting the Play Store listing again and clicking “Unregister.”
One of the first titles to use the new “Pre-registration” features is Terminator Genisys: Revolution, from Glu.
This is one of those simple features that make a lot of sense and feel like they should’ve been added much earlier. Thanks to it, app developers will be able to better promote their apps and stage well-oiled launches. And for users, it will become much easier to keep up with new releases. With so many quality titles hitting Android, app pre-registration could come in really handy.
Apple Announces Renewable Energy and Forestland Initiatives in China
Apple today announced a new multi-year project with World Wildlife Fund to protect up to 1 million acres of responsibly managed working forests in China, which the company says provide fiber for pulp, paper and wood products. The new forestland program is part of Apple’s goal to run its worldwide operations on 100% renewable energy.
Apple’s 40-megawatt solar farm in Hongyuan, China
Apple also confirmed plans to expand its industry-leading renewable energy projects to manufacturing facilities in China, three weeks after the company announced a partnership with SunPower Corporation to build two 20-megawatt solar power plants that will provide more than enough energy to power all of Apple’s corporate offices and retail stores in the world’s most populous country.
“We’ve set an example by greening our data centers, retail stores and corporate offices, and we’re ready to start leading the way toward reducing carbon emissions from manufacturing,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “This won’t happen overnight—in fact it will take years—but it’s important work that has to happen, and Apple is in a unique position to take the initiative toward this ambitious goal. It is a responsibility we accept. We are excited to work with leaders in our supply chain who want to be on the cutting edge of China’s green transformation.”
Apple shared its 2015 Environmental Responsibility Report in April, reflecting on the company’s environmental progress during the 2014 fiscal year. The report highlights that 100% of the company’s U.S. operations and 87% of its global operations are run on renewable energy. The report also reveals that Apple emitted 34.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions during the 12-month period ending September.
Galaxy S6 Edge battery life review – 28 days later
The Galaxy S6 Edge may tick a lot of boxes, but on paper, there’s at least one area where Samsung’s curved flagship could be undone: the battery life. The handset is powered by a 2600 mAh battery and unlike past Samsung devices, it’s not removable.
Samsung claims the handset will survive an entire day in the right conditions, but just how good is the battery life? Since the handset launched on April 10th, I’ve been testing the battery life; I’ve already shared my first experience followed by an update a few days later but now it’s time to look back at the past four weeks and answer the real question everyone has been asking – just how long can you expect the battery to last?
My initial experience with the battery life was that, like with most smartphones, the first few days can be misleading. At first it lasted 14 hours, then dropped rapidly to 8 hours as soon as the brightness was turned up then rose up to just shy of 24 hours as the screen brightness was reduced. So for this piece I am trying to give you a better idea of what the average battery life on the S6 Edge is.
Average battery life
When considering how best to determine the average battery life, I thought about how the average consumer – i.e. the mass market, which is Samsung’s target market – would use the handset. From my knowledge, this often means using their phone in the morning and on the way to work, at lunch and then after work, through until the end of the day.
Average of 14 to 18 hours battery life
Using this average use case an example, the Galaxy S6 Edge average battery life is 14 to 18 hours battery life with screen auto brightness set to between 40 and 60 percent. Now this includes between 3 and 4 hours of screen-on-time (a topic I’ll touch on below) and various email accounts, information streams and social networks syncing all day.
There’s one big issue with the Galaxy S6 Edge though: using the handset for gaming or video playback does drain the battery. I’ve found that watching a movie for two hours at full brightness can use 35 percent of your battery or more. This reduces average total battery life to 13 hours, which wouldn’t be enough in our average use case.
As another use case, I’ve found that on days where I’ve been spending days at events and sharing images on social media, the battery life has been significantly worse. In fact, all camera usage results in lower battery life as opening the camera automatically puts the handset at full brightness. This was definitely a problem during the recent trip to Malta for the IFA 2015 GPC but one potential solution to this is Quick Charge-enabled portable chargers.
Screen on time
I mentioned screen on time and this leads me to a debate that appeared on the most recent FDP episode of the AA podcast. As we discussed, screen on time is highly subjective and often a number that gets branded about without being clearly explained. From my experience, an average screen on time of 3 to 4 hours on the S6 Edge is satisfactory from a full day’s use as I don’t spend the entire day on my handset.
If you happen to use your display more often, I’ve found that an increase in screen on time to between four and five hours will reduce the overall battery life by about three hours. If you increase the brightness to full brightness but keep auto brightness on, the total battery life drops to an average of between 14 and 16 hours while full brightness can halve the total battery life or worse.
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Wrap up
The battery life on the Galaxy S6 Edge has certainly been interesting, and, as a Samsung user, the lack of removable battery was always going to be a challenge. Yet it’s proved easier to handle that I thought mainly due to Quick Charging, which has meant I can charge the handset quickly when I need to.
While I’ve been testing the battery life, there have been times where I couldn’t charge overnight and I’d wake up with nowhere near enough for a full day. This is where Quick Charging comes in; a 30-minute charge can add up to 50 percent to the battery life, while you can charge to full in 80 minutes or less.
Yes it’s certainly not perfect and yes, it won’t be good enough for everyone, but, for me, I’m willing to make the small sacrifice of battery life for the other positives – and there’s a lot of them – of the S6 Edge. If this average battery life won’t work for you, luckily not all OEMs have dropped removable batteries and the LG G4 is probably the best alternative to the Galaxy S6 Edge.
Let us know your thoughts. What’s your average battery life and screen on time from your experience so far?
PingPongRoot for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge doesn’t trip Knox
The Samsung Galaxy S6 hasn’t long hit the market, but that hasn’t stopped a few root methods from surfacing. The latest, named PingPongRoot, uses an exploit that works with a number of Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge handsets, including some models bearing AT&T and Verizon brandings. The best part is that the root method comes in the form of an APK rather than complex PC based method and shouldn’t trip Samsung’s KNOX security feature.
Samsung’s KNOX is a useful initiative for those looking for a little more protection with their smartphone, but this isn’t necessarily a welcome feature for those who like to tamper with their gadgets. Tripping Samsung’s Knox counter prevents My Knox from working correctly and has previously been used a flag to void warranties. There is also a suspicion that Knox is tied into Samsung Pay, so may also stop that feature from working correctly if tripped.
Fortunately, PingPongRoot for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge shouldn’t run into this trouble, as it doesn’t require users to go through Samsung’s ODIN flash tool to install a custom recovery. Although interference can’t be ruled out completely.
As always, I highly recommend that you read through the entire post before taking the plunge and be sure to check that the software installed on your Galaxy S6 matches that in the compatibility list. You can find the installation instructions and notes in the source link below.
More money made from mobile ads on Android than on iOS for the first time ever
One of the primary ways that app developers make money from their apps is from mobile advertising. This is especially true of apps which are free to download and don’t contain any in-app purchases. For a long time it has been conventional wisdom that app developers make more money on iOS than on Android. However things started to change about a year ago.
At the beginning of 2014, we witnessed a big change for mobile advertising: Android overtook iOS as the top platform for traffic. In the world of mobile advertising, “traffic” means the number of mobile ad impressions served. Now a year on and Android dominates the market. Over 65 percent of all mobile ad impressions go to Android devices, which is a huge growth from the 42.8 percent of Q1 2014. In comparison iOS devices get around 22 percent of the ads, of which 17 percent going to iPhones and the rest going to iPads and iPods (i.e. models in the iPod Touch range).
However, although Android was getting more ads, the amount of money made by developers was still higher on iOS. App developers get money in several different ways depending on the mobile advertising platform and the types of ads displayed by the app. Primarily the developers make money when a user taps on an advert, or alternatively there are some schemes where the developers gets money per 1000 ads shown.
45.77 percent of mobile advertising revenue comes from Android, while 45.44 percent comes from iOS.
Until now the combination of the number of taps and the price paid by advertisers for their adverts to be displayed meant that iOS generated more income for developers. But that has changed. For the first time ever, Android is leading revenue generation, albeit by a hair’s breadth.
According to Opera Mediaworks, the advertising arm of the web browser maker, 45.77 percent of mobile advertising revenue comes from Android, while 45.44 percent comes from iOS. It has derived these numbers from its own mobile advertising platform, however it more than likely reflects the overall trend in mobile advertising across all the platforms.
Are you an app developer with apps on both iOS and Android? See any changes in Android income recently?
Carphone Warehouse’s ‘iD’ mobile network launches tomorrow
Carphone Warehouse is launching its “iD” mobile network tomorrow, and in preparation it’s revealed new details about its contracts and how they differ from the competition. For starters, they’ll be separated into four tiers: Shockproof, TakeAway, Go To and SIM Only. The Shockproof tier starts from £7.50 per month and is designed to help you avoid expensive bills. To do this, iD will cap your usage automatically, while offering a customisable “buffer” just in case you find yourself craving a few extra GB. TakeAway, meanwhile, will offer plans from £25.50 per month with free roaming in 22 countries — that’s more than Three’s “Feel at Home” initiative, if you’re keeping score.
For data-hungry users that rarely leave the UK, iD will have Go To contracts from £13.50 per month (12 month contract) and £11.50 per month (24 month contract). All of iD’s plans come with 4G as standard, but Carphone Warehouse is yet to break out exactly how much data you’ll be getting for your money. Finally, the virtual mobile network operator (VMNO) will also be selling SIM-only plans from £7.50 per month, or £5 per month if you’re only interested in data. Like Three, this will also include unlimited data plans — one contract it’s highlighting offers infinite data, 2,000 minutes and 5,000 texts for £20 per month.
Until we see a full breakdown of pricing and available handsets, it’s hard to judge Carphone Warehouse’s new offering. Its SIM-only unlimited data plans and TakeAway roaming contracts could prove attractive, and that’s perhaps no coincidence given its new network is being powered by Three. Still, Carphone Warehouse is entering a fiercely competitive space at the moment, filled with well-funded newcomers and potential mergers. Its network of high street stores should give its new brand plenty of exposure, but to succeed, it’ll need to significantly undercut or outmatch all of the UK’s major carriers.
Filed under: Wireless, Networking
Source: iD
OnePlus to announce China-only HydrogenOS on May 28th
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What comes after Oxygen? Hydrogen, apparently. Last month, Chinese smartphone manufacturer, OnePlus, released OxygenOS for its OnePlus One devices with the intention that it would cover pretty well all One handsets across the globe. As it turns out, OxygenOS won’t really be around in China as OnePlus is going to release HydrogenOS there and has started sending out invites to an event on May 28th.
For those who didn’t catch OxygenOS’s release, OnePlus basically released a slightly modified version of Android 5.0 for the OnePlus One, presumably with some nice optimizations built in. We’d assume that HydrogenOS would mostly be the same as OxygenOS with a few regional flourishes – China has been a fan of the MIUI theme layout, much like a iOS homescreen, so we’ll have to see whether OnePlus takes HydrogenOS down that path or not.
What do you expect HydrogenOS to look like? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Zol via TalkAndroid
The post OnePlus to announce China-only HydrogenOS on May 28th appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
A game that explores the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease
You’re standing in a living room. It might be your living room. Something’s not quite right — for every object you recognize, there’s another you don’t. Normally, if you get this feeling while playing a video game, you’re in the middle of a horror, awaiting the inevitable jump scare. In Forget-Me-Knot, however, you aren’t evading an enemy, but instead trying to piece together memories of a life that, thanks to Alzheimer’s Disease, you barely remember.
Developed by Alexander Tarvet, a student studying Game Design & Production Management at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland, Forget-Me-Knot is designed to raise awareness for those suffering with dementia. “Through playing Forget-Me-Knot the player gets an immediate sense of the confusion the character feels,” Tarvet tells MOTD. “The player is in exactly the same position as the person with Alzheimer’s — both have to explore the room and try and piece together an understanding of photos and letters through clues left on shelves and in drawers.”
Games’ ability to help the player to understand different perspectives on life is somewhat under-utilized. Notable examples of similar endeavors include Dys4ia and Depression Quest, which focus on the creators’ struggles with gender dysphoria and depression, respectively. Like Forget-Me-Knot, Ether One (available for free through PlayStation Plus this month) looks at the effects of dementia, but does so in the context of a more traditional adventure game. There’s no word on whether Tarvet plans to take the game any further, but given the positive reception so far, some sort of release seems likely.
Filed under: Gaming
Via: BoingBoing
Source: Alexander Tarvet
London’s ‘Boris bikes’ get an app for paying and planning rides
Using one of London’s “Boris bikes” isn’t as simple as, say, taking the Underground or catching a bus. You have to find a docking station with an available bike, work out your journey time and how much you’ll be charged, and then find another drop-off point that’s close to your destination and not already full. To make the process a little simpler, Santander and Transport for London (TfL) are launching an app for iOS and Android. You can use it to find your nearest docking station, check how many bikes are available and pay for your next ride. Once you’ve selected a 24-hour or annual pass, a unique release code will be sent to your phone, which can then be used to unlock a two-wheeler.
To give you some peace of mind, the app will log exactly when you took out the bike — which could prove useful, because even with a 24-hour pass, TfL will charge you extra for rides that last more than 30 minutes. The app can also help you plan your journey, hopefully avoiding any nasty charges, confirm when you’ve returned a bike, and offer a breakdown of recent hires and how much you’ve spent. We’re still waiting for the scheme to support Oyster cards and contactless payments, but this is definitely a start.
[Image Credit: Steve Bardens/ Getty Images for Santander]
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Santander Cycles (iOS), (Android)
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